Recommendation: Brion Nuda Rosch at Eli Ridgway Gallery

Brion Nuda Rosch presents twenty-three new works ranging from a large diptych painting to numerous smaller collages (through October 1, 2011). Many are reminiscent of the work Rosch has shown over the past few years, featuring a found image, often of a black-and-white landscape, with a painted, cut-out, four-cornered form placed on it. The form in these works is painted flat brown, perhaps a stand-in for the earth, or some sort of firm grounding. These and other works play with formal concerns such as foreground and background, form, and composition.

Perhaps the most poignant piece of this ilk is the sextet of same-sized works, arranged grid-like in three columns of two, Time as Concept (Infinity). The background image is the same in every piece; the brown shape is the only variable, changing in size and form. In the lower-right-hand work (the “last” piece) the brown shape fills the frame. What, then, is the image? Is this, or where is, the content? By showing us “something” and then “nothing,” Rosch effectively demonstrates what is at the heart of his work; he questions the foundations of image-making.

At times Rosch’s minimalist approach becomes too minimal, as with the piece Two Right Angles in Conversation, a framed cut-out piece of cardboard with rough strokes of brown paint on it. We consider the form, and move on. But when he’s on point, which he is numerous times in this show, Rosch provides us with sharply edited works that simply, elegantly address major concepts with a minimum of fuss.